Human pluripotent stem cells, such as embryonic stem (ES) cells and embryonic germ (EG) cells, were first isolated in culture without fibroblast feeders in 1994 (Bongso et al. 1994) and with fibroblast feeders (Hogan, 1997). Later, Thomson, Reubinoff and Shamblott established continuous cultures of human ES and EG cells using mitotically inactivated mouse feeder layers (Reubinoff et al., 2000; Shamblott et al., 1998; Thomson et al., 1998).
Human ES and EG cells (hESCs) offer unique opportunities for investigating early stages of human development as well as for therapeutic intervention in several disease states, such as diabetes mellitus and Parkinson's disease. For example, the use of insulin-producing β-cells derived from hESCs would offer a vast improvement over current cell therapy procedures that utilize cells from donor pancreases for the treatment of diabetes. However, presently it is not known how to generate an insulin-producing β-cell from hESCs. As such, current cell therapy treatments for diabetes mellitus, which utilize islet cells from donor pancreases, are limited by the scarcity of high quality islet cells needed for transplant. Cell therapy for a single Type I diabetic patient requires a transplant of approximately 8×108 pancreatic islet cells. (Shapiro et al., 2000; Shapiro et al., 2001a; Shapiro et al., 2001b). As such, at least two healthy donor organs are required to obtain sufficient islet cells for a successful transplant. Human embryonic stem cells offer a source of starting material from which to develop substantial quantities of high quality differentiated cells for human cell therapies.
Two properties that make hESCs uniquely suited to cell therapy applications are pluripotence and the ability to maintain these cells in culture for prolonged periods. Pluripotency is defined by the ability of hESCs to differentiate to derivatives of all 3 primary germ layers (endoderm, mesoderm, ectoderm) which, in turn, form all somatic cell types of the mature organism in addition to extraembryonic tissues (e.g. placenta) and germ cells. Although pluripotency imparts extraordinary utility upon hESCs, this property also poses unique challenges for the study and manipulation of these cells and their derivatives. Owing to the large variety of cell types that may arise in differentiating hESC cultures, the vast majority of cell types are produced at very low efficiencies. Additionally, success in evaluating production of any given cell type depends critically on defining appropriate markers. Achieving efficient, directed differentiation is of great importance for therapeutic application of hESCs.
As such, in addition to achieving efficient directed differentiation of hESCs, it would be beneficial to identify markers which can be used to identify and/or segregate cells at their earliest stages of differentiation away from hESCs. Additionally, it would be beneficial to identify factors which promote the differentiation of these early precursor cells derived from hESCs to cell types useful for cell therapies.